Vandals torched a bronze, life-size statue of Ronald Reagan in an apparent arson fire in a Southern
California sports park named after the 40th president, The Press-Enterprise reported.

The 1-year-old
statue was set ablaze at the Ronald Reagan Sports Park in Temecula, Calif. -- a park Reagan praised in the early 1980s because
it was built through volunteerism and fundraising and not through government handouts. The statue shows the former president
in casual clothing, holding a shovel in one hand and a cowboy hat in another. The suspected arson was discovered around
7 a.m. Friday by a park worker.

"It’s an insult to the president as well as to
the community," Perry Peters, founder of the nonprofit Friends of Ronald Reagan Sports Park, told the newspaper.